A Defence of Technical Excellence
summary
Claim: the usual good fast cheap, pick two trade-off is a fallacy for software because hidden reinforcing feedback loops (bugs + technical debt → confusion → more bugs) erode delivery over time. The talk builds visual models using causal loop diagrams in Loopy to show reinforcing vs balancing loops, then layers interventions — test-driven development, collaborative modelling, observability, ADRs, C4 docs and a Contextive YAML glossary — that introduce balancing feedback and restore steady value delivery. The models and examples show these practices reduce confusion and increase sustainable throughput.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction to technical excellence
- 1:33Common development pitfalls
- 4:02The iron triangle myth
- 8:10Causal loop diagrams for systems
- 15:49Modeling software development failures
- 22:25Internal vs external quality
- 24:31Tools for theory building
- 31:11Leverage points and AI
- 36:47Summary and conclusion
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